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Junior Acolyte

I was out for a meal recently an there was an occurrence which attracted my attention because it was so unusual. There was a family of five sitting at a nearby table. Mother, father and three daughters ranging in age from about 6 to 10. The youngest asked if they might go out to play before the meal came. The father said no. The three girls sat there all quietly playing on phones. (Yes, even with THIS family they were there). The meal arrived. The phones were put away. After the meal the eldest daughter got up, unprompted, and placed all the dirty plates into a neat pile for the waitress to remove. Then they all sat there behaving themselves waiting for the dessert to arrive. It must have been a sight worth commenting on because I'm doing just that now.

Beloved of Ra

But I do think it's wrong to assume that young people using phones constantly is a bad thing. It's not a passive activity, it's far more interactive than spending hours watching TV. It can be negative, but there are positives too - they are potentially communicating with a much wider group of people; creating their own videos, blogs, photography, music; making new connections...

Like I say, all of these can have negative aspects...but I was a curious child, and if I'd had a pocket window to the entire breadth of recorded human knowledge and culture, I would have been glued to it too.

Junior Acolyte

But I do think it's wrong to assume that young people using phones constantly is a bad thing. It's not a passive activity, it's far more interactive than spending hours watching TV. It can be negative, but there are positives too - they are potentially communicating with a much wider group of people; creating their own videos, blogs, photography, music; making new connections...

Like I say, all of these can have negative aspects...but I was a curious child, and if I'd had a pocket window to the entire breadth of recorded human knowledge and culture, I would have been glued to it too.

Yes but deprive them of this phone and they can't do anything. We've already agreed that telling the time is beyond them. I expect adding up and map reading is as well. It's the dependency on the phone that is the problem.

Recovering policeman

A few months ago someone brought his young daughter to the rifle range l attend. After her turn shooting she went to the seats at the back of the range, retrieved a book and sat reading intently, awaiting her next detail. I could have hugged her, except l didn’t want to end up on a Register for ten years...

Junior Acolyte

A few months ago someone brought his young daughter to the rifle range l attend. After her turn shooting she went to the seats at the back of the range, retrieved a book and sat reading intently, awaiting her next detail. I could have hugged her, except l didn’t want to end up on a Register for ten years...

AWOL

Yes but deprive them of this phone and they can't do anything. We've already agreed that telling the time is beyond them. I expect adding up and map reading is as well. It's the dependency on the phone that is the problem.

Well...not all of them. After all, it's not that difficult. I can distinctly remember realising that I'd learned how to read a clock face and being quite excited at acquirring such a grown-up skill - an even bigger milestone than learning to tie my own shoelaces - once I'd understood that there were sixty minutes in an hour it wasn't much of a leap to see that the fast moving hand represented the minutes and the slow one the hours. Mind you, I couldn't believe at first that I'd stumbled upon the solution as it seemed too simple, and for a while I wondered if I'd got it wrong and there was actually more to time telling than my young mind was able to grasp.

My point is, even if using an analogue clock isn't a necessary skill it's not hard to work out almost by accident.

If I spot any children with analogue watches I'll make a note of it.

Afterthought: There is of course a huge choice of attractive analogue clock apps and widgets for smartphones and computers and these are very popular. I'd assume their use isn't restricted just to those of us who can remember Tiswas.

Ephemeral Spectre

Was listening to No Such thing as a Fish, and one of the facts mentioned in the show was that over time children's self control has increased.
Not by a lot, but averaging out to six seconds a generation.
Interesting, though seeing the way games like mine craft work I can believe it. A friend's ten year old showed me the complex machinery he'd put together in the game.
Kind of runs against the idea that kids are getting less focused.

As for books, it was a slow process, but these days I now read from my phone almost exclusively. I have a small library of books and audiobook, and just can't fit paperbacks in my jeans like I used to.
And since they stopped making pants with ridiculous picket sizes, hardcovers are a lost cause.

Justified & Ancient

I used simple maths at work but what seems logical to me seems like magic to some youngsters. Some ask how I worked something out. An older person, for example, if asked to calculate 11 x 16 in their head would in all likelihood times the 16 by 10 and then take off 16. Perhaps new methods of teaching don't allow kids to do that.